The Museum of History and Local Lore (Altai State Pedagogical University) contains a vast collection of weapon items from the Early Iron Age. Most of the artifacts were obtained by the famous Siberian archeologist Alexei P. Umansky. This article introduces the burial semantics of two iron spearheads from archeological sites Novotroitskoye 2 and Maslyakha 1. These artifacts have already been described in several theses on the ancient military art of the Upper Ob Valley. However, they remain understudied in terms of local funeral rituals in the second half of the 1st millennium BC. The author used some rare archival materials from the museum of the Altai State Pedagogical University to give a new perspective to the spearheads from the Upper Ob. The contextual analysis involved related finds from the burial sites of Bystrovka 1, Bystrovka 2, and Kamenny Mys. It made it possible to interpret the role of weapon in the rite of passage. Unusual and symbolically broken items could represent event sacralization, which was a widespread adaptation strategy for integrating objects and ideas into the funeral practice of a multicultural community.

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) can be applied to archeological sites that belong to the epoch of Russian exploration of Western Siberia. GIS make it possible to collect, accumulate, and visualize archeological data. Although the method has gained a lot of popularity in the recent decades, Russian GIS-archeology has poor theoretical foundations. This article summarizes experience, problems, and prospects of using GIS at Modern Age archeological sites in Western Siberia. It starts with a comprehensive historiographic analysis of the domestic experience in various regions of Russia. The author introduces a preliminary classification of GIS-technologies. The analysis proved that GIS are acknowledged practical tools that make it possible to accumulate available theoretical data about archeological sites. Some regions have more prospects for GIS-archeology than others. A number of issues will have to be solved to develop the domestic GIS-archeology. For instance, attributive markers, conventional designations, and map bases should be unified. Moreover, archeologists often experience problems with access to data and experience obtained by their colleagues. Finally, there are very few specialized archeological GIS on Modern Age sites. In addition, Russian archeology will definitely benefit from AI-technologies.

The present research featured a slotted, or liner, bone dagger from the Neolithic layer of the Ust-Narym settlement on the Irtysh River. Its design, material processing technology, and functional purpose make it a rare, as well as the most ancient example of hand-to-hand combat weapons found in Kazakhstan. This composite object was carved from the posterior left metatarsal bone of a wild auroch with the help of several tools. It includes thin and sharp flint inserts, which were attached into the grooves on the side faces of the dagger frame with a special adhesive substance. An additional nozzle for a short handle made it possible to use this piercing-cutting weapon in battle. It is decorated with dots and circles connected by straight lines, which probably means it was a socialized object of ritual use associated with sacrifice. Typologically, the dagger from Ust-Narym is similar to artifacts found in the Late Paleolithic and Mesolithic sites in the south of Western Siberia, in the Urals, in the Baikal region, and in Eastern Europe. The dagger marks a milestone in the technical and technological development of ancient Eurasian peoples. It also illustrates the ethno-social and cultural processes across the vast territory of Eurasia.

The article compares the lives of the Evangelical Pentecostals in Eastern Europe and Western Siberia in the XX century. The study relied on archival sources, as well as foreign and domestic publications on history and religious studies. The analysis covered such aspects as genesis, developmental stages, religious policy, population, and the role of charismatic leaders, e.g., Ivan E. Voronaev, who initiated the migration from Ukraine to Western Siberia. All Pentecostal communities shared the same expansion strategy, i.e., proselytism: they gained new members by converting Evangelical Christians and Baptists. The followers of the Voronaev movement lived in Western Siberia and were reluctant to unite with the local Evangelical Christians and Baptists. They avoided official registrations and made no compromises with the authorities. The Pentecostals contradicted the official policy of Soviet states and the Polish People’s Republic. Pentecostal communities sought independence from the state, glossolalia, active missionary work, and other denomination canons.

The study featured Japanese sources about the onset of religious and political reforms introduced in the early Yamato period by Emperor Sūjin, who ruled in 324–331 A.D. and was also known as Emperor Mimaki. The Jimmu clan worshiped Takamimusubi and Ōhirume. The Yamato dynasty worshiped eight deities, including the Sun Goddess Ōmiya-no-Me-no-Kami, granddaughter of the supreme god Takamimusubi. She could become a prototype for the solar cult of Emperor Sūjin’s dynasty. This deity united the functions of the former supreme god Takamimusubi with those of the sun spirit Amaterasu, who was a hypostasis of kunitama, the patron spirit of the Yamato lands from the shrine at the foot of Mount Miwa. To give a higher status to the new Sun Goddess Amaterasu, it was to be transformed from an intra-family cult into a universal one. As a result, they built her a shrine in the village of Kasanuimura (ancient Jap. Kasanupi) in the Shiki area of Yamato region. The control functions were separated from the cult functions, but the ruler retained the functions of the high priest. He was left with one of the three imperial regalia, the jasper jewel Yasakani-no-Magatama. The other regalia, i.e., the sacred mirror and the sacred sword, were sent to Kasanuimura and replaced with replicas.

The article examines the phenomenon of intelligentsia as an object of modern Russian science. The authors focus on the contribution of various Russian scientific schools that study the past and present of Russian intelligentsia, e.g., the school founded by Professor V.S. Memetov at the Ivanovo State University, as well as scientific schools in the Urals, St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Omsk. The Intelligentsia and the World is a twenty-year-old periodic edition that publishes research connected with intelligentsia and intellectuals in different historical periods. The article features methodology issues, including the activity approach, which is very popular in domestic Russian science. The authors believe that the domestic intellectual studies need a wide range of methods to approach a number of unresolved issues, as well as a stronger interuniversity cooperation.

Advertisements are an important source on the history of regional entrepreneurship and trade. The article considers the development of advertising in the Tomsk Province in the context of local modernization processes. Trade and industrial journals highlighted the socio-economic development of the region. They also revealed public interests and attitude to commerce, as well as pointed at the systemic changes that took place in Siberia in the late XIX – early XX centuries. The author used the methods of historical-systematic and content analyses to classify advertisements published in 1894–1903 by goods and services, territorial affiliation, and design. Local, metropolitan, nonresident, and foreign entrepreneurs offered the Tomsk population a diverse range of non-food, food, medical, and agricultural goods and services. The ads provided information on sale details, products, current prices, new offers, sales, and discounts. The growth of business activity in the Tomsk province in the late XIX – early XX centuries boosted the development of a single trading space, both on the provincial and domestic market.

The article discusses the state fur monopoly in the Far Eastern Republic (1920–1922). N.A. Mikhailovsky was the head of the Sub-Department for Fisheries and Hunting at the Ministry of Agriculture. His scientific approach to fur monopoly was rather unusual for the bureaucratic nomenclature of those days. The author performed a comprehensive analysis of N.A. Mikhailovsky’s views on the nature of the fur monopoly, the experience of its implementation in the Far Eastern Republic, the consequences of the poor implementation methods, and the ways the commercial and raw material economy used to get out of the crisis. The research relied on the principles of objectivity and historicism, with historical-genetic and formal-legal methods. N.A. Mikhailovsky could foresee the disastrous outcome of the hastily adopted legal provisions as the sudden drop in fur legally harvested by the Central Union of Cooperatives led to smuggling. However, he did his best to improve the legislative procedure of state monopolization. N.A. Mikhailovsky faced the difficult foreign policy situation in the frontier and the domestic economic crisis. He had to act at the limit of his departmental capabilities, trying to overcome the resistance of the controlling organs, e.g., the Ministry of Industry and Trade. He made a number of very careful attempts to bring to the authorities the situation with gangs that smuggled the fur "counter currency" abroad. During 1921 – early 1922, he proposed a number of measures to rationalize the system of commercial fur harvesting while maintaining a limited state monopoly. As a result, the government took the correct legislative strategy to establish productive relationships with the local hunting communities.

The national security depends on the health of the population, which, in its turn, depends on the healthcare system. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia focused on the primary healthcare. The goals, tools, and results of the reforms that have taken place in the last three decades are usually considered from the point of view of law, economic feasibility, or organizational effectiveness. The author applied the historical and political approach to these reforms, thus evaluating their ability to preserve and increase human health. Fertility, morbidity, and mortality usually serve as national health criteria. The research relied on regulatory legal acts, speeches of senior government officials, official statistics, and sociological surveys. Demographic problems and budget deficits proved to be the main reasons behind the post-Soviet reforms, which transferred some material obligations from the federal to the local level and expended the scope of commercial medicine. Part of the financial burden moved from expensive specialized hospitals (secondary healthcare) to cheaper polyclinic and preventive medicine (primary healthcare). Federal budget expenditures decreased as patient capacity and the number of medical organizations went down and the productivity of primary healthcare went up. However, the national mortality and morbidity kept growing. The current diagnostic preventive healthcare model concentrates on primary healthcare: it reduces financial expenditures but fails to solve the demographic problems.

The turbulent first decades of the XX century resulted in the fact that modern Russians know very little about their ancestors, their social status, occupation, education, etc. Sometimes the only source for numerous genealogical questions can be obtained from unidentified and undated faded photographs. The author made an attempt to identify the Pavlovsk Military School cadets of the Fifth Squad, graduates of the Tenth Accelerated Wartime Course, by their graduation photo made in 1916. The Pavlovsk Military School was one of the most prestigious military education institutions in the Russian Empire. The article contains biographical information and images of cadets whose personality the author managed to identify. Most of them chose the military path guided by the realities of the Great War. These people became witnesses and participants of revolutions, wars, emigration, repressions, and World War II. The research relied on federal and regional archives. The identity of the cadets was confirmed by archival photographs. This research proved that students’ files can be an important historical source. The publication may help to find the descendants of the cadets, as well as to attract the attention of scholars and local historians, and encourage active citizens to provide additional information about their personalities.

The establishment of the Kemerovo Region in 1943 marked the institutionalization of regional physical culture and sports management bodies. Regional sports competitions needed medical support and control. The Kemerovo Regional Medical Exercises Dispensary appeared in 1949 as an important structural component of the system of medical control and medical support of physical culture and sports in the Kemerovo Region. The archives of the Regional Health Department and the Kemerovo Regional Medical Exercises Dispensary made it possible to determine the advantages and shortcomings of the new institution. The author relied on the principles of historicism and objectivity, as well as on the methods of problem chronology and historical system, to describe the role of the Dispensary in the new system of medical support of physical culture and sports in the postwar years. In the mid-1950s, the Kemerovo Region developed an elaborated network of institutions of medical and physical therapy service, and the Dispensary became a core institution that organized its work. The early 1960s saw a steady increase in the number of medical control and physical therapy services. The Dispensary acquired new functions but suffered from poor facilities and staffing until the mid-1960s, which restrained its developmental potential. The state used the positive experience gained during World War II to improve the network of medical and physical therapy institutions. In 1949–1965, the Kemerovo Region introduced a fundamentally new system of medical support for physical culture and sports.

The article describes the agricultural sector of the Kemerovo Region (Kuzbass). The author used it as an example to identify the main stages of agricultural development of Western Siberia in 1981–1985. The study relied on the theory of modernization, which links economic and political changes with agricultural reforms. According to archival documents and regional statistics, the new tools of economic development and the favorable investment climate allowed the industry to overcome the agrarian crisis in the early 1980s, improve the state of affairs on collective and state farms, and increase the agricultural production. The new measures included producing for profit, labor contracts, and elements of land lease as the economic independence of agricultural enterprises continued to grow. The regional agricultural sector developed much faster in the 1980s than in the late 1970s. However, non-production costs, crop waste, and cattle mortality remained high while irrational utilization of state resources was quite common. In general, Kuzbass showed average agricultural indicators for the West Siberian economic region.

In the early 1920s, Russia moved on from the New Economic Policy to industrialization. The Kuznetsk Coal Basin needed an advanced mine-rescue system to support its growing coal industry. This research focused on the chain of decisions made by the state authorities to expand the mine-rescue stations network across the USSR. The authors used the examples of mine-rescue stations in Anzhero-Sudzhensk, Leninskiy, and Kemerovo to describe the formation and development of respiratory and supporting rescue teams. Archival sources made it possible to restore the quantitative composition, wage system, and funding sources of the Kuzbass mine-rescue service in July 1, 1924, as well as to identify the first management team. The mine-rescue development followed the expansion of the coal industry under the efficient state control provided by the centralized mining supervision. By the beginning of the second five-year industrial plan, Kuzbass was responsible for 8.5 % of the total mine-rescue stations in the country. The Kuzbass region owed its wide and efficient network of mine-rescue stations to the financial and organizational support of the state. 

The Editorial Office of SibScript would like to report about the addition of information in the published article: Shulginov V. A., Alyansky K. A. Impolite Communication Practices as a Community-Building Tool in Sports News Comments. SibScript, 2023, 25(4): 481–490. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.21603/ sibscript-2023-25-4-481-490

The affiliation of the author Valery A. Shulginov supplemented with information about the second organization: Pushkin State Russian Language Institute, Russia, Moscow. The manuscript will be updated and the original will remain available on the article webpage.